As the world works toward the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, the buildings and construction sector stands at a critical intersection of climate action, sustainable development, and urban resilience.

This first report from the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) Subnationals Action Group focuses on the importance of localizing climate action. It highlights how subnational governments, in collaboration with national authorities, the private sector, and civil society, can drive meaningful change by integrating sustainability, resilience, and circularity into building policies and practices.

With more than half of the global population living in urban areas—and this figure expected to rise—the report examines how cities and local governments are well-positioned to implement climate-responsive solutions. It explores opportunities for multilevel governance, sectoral linkages, and inclusive planning, offering examples and recommendations to support a just and equitable transition.

The report also underscores the need for investment and innovation to scale up efforts, reduce emissions across the building life cycle, and ensure access to safe, affordable, and sustainable housing. It calls for a holistic, people-centered approach to decarbonization and resilience in the built environment—grounded in informed choices, coordinated action, and strong partnerships.

The 2024 Building and Climate Global Forum Report serves as a valuable resource for reflection and action in the field of buildings and climate. This major event brought together over 1,500 participants from more than 70 countries, fostering dialogue among international experts, government representatives, and private sector leaders.

With a strong focus on innovation, research, and education, the report captures key insights from the plenary and parallel sessions. A dedicated team of experts, students, and alumni contributed to summarizing discussions, ensuring the dissemination of critical knowledge on sustainable development challenges in the built environment.

This initiative was made possible through the collaboration of ADEME (The French Agency for Ecological Transition), École nationale des ponts et chaussées and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), and the commitment of nearly 50 rapporteurs, whose contributions played a crucial role in the success of this project. The report stands as a testament to collective efforts in advancing sustainable solutions for the buildings and construction sector.

The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction (Buildings-GSR), published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), provides an annual snapshot of the progress of the buildings and construction sector on a global scale. The Buildings-GSR reviews the status of policies, finance, technologies and solutions to monitor whether the sector is aligned with the Paris Agreement goals.

The Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction 2024-2025 - Not just another brick in the wall highlights progress made on related global climate goals and calls for greater ambition on six challenges, including building energy codes, renewable energy, and financing. Global frameworks and initiatives such as Intergovernmental Council for Buildings and Climate, the Buildings Breakthrough and the Declaration de Chaillot are sustaining momentum towards adopting ambitious climate action plans, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), for net-zero buildings ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil.

Despite this progress, the sector remains a key driver of the climate crisis, consuming 32 per cent of global energy and contributing to 34 per cent of global CO2 emissions. The sector is dependent on materials like cement and steel that are responsible for 18% of global emissions and are a major source of construction waste.

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The Sufficiency Action Hub aims to demonstrate the necessity, feasibility, and social desirability of sufficiency measures in the building sector, fostering a shared understanding across decision-making levels. Its goal is to build a diverse community of stakeholders worldwide, from various sectors of the building value chain, to adapt sufficiency solutions to different contexts, recognizing disparities between the Global North and South. Launched by the French Institute for Building Performance and supported by key institutions like ADEME, the initiative seeks to address the environmental challenges posed by the building sector, which is responsible for 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The Action Hub highlights the urgent need for sufficiency measures, advocating for a systemic approach that integrates demand-side policies to reduce resource consumption, mitigate emissions, and ensure social equity. Through international collaboration and the adoption of the "Sufficiency First" principle, the initiative aims to reshape the future of the building sector within planetary boundaries. The Action Hub has recently published a report outlining the key findings of its ongoing work and initiatives.  

Since its launch at COP 26, the Breakthrough Agenda has become established as an annual collaborative process centred around the Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is currently supported by 59 countries representing over 80% of global GDP, and by over 100 initiatives working to enhance collaboration within major emitting sectors. Countries can endorse Breakthrough goals to make clean technologies and sustainable practices more affordable, accessible and attractive than their alternatives by 2030 in the power, road transport, hydrogen, steel, cement, buildings and agriculture sectors. This report covers six of the seven sectors, with agricultural covered in a separate report.

The Breakthrough Agenda establishes an annual cycle to track developments towards these goals, identify where further coordinated international action is urgently needed to accelerate progress and then galvanise public and private international action behind these specific priorities in order to make these transitions quicker, cheaper, and easier for all.

To initiate this cycle, world leaders tasked the IEA and the UN Climate Change High Level Champions to develop an annual Breakthrough Agenda report to provide an independent evidence base and expert recommendations for where stronger international collaboration is needed.

This document, the 2024 Breakthrough Agenda Report, is the third of these annual reports. It provides an assessment of progress against the recommendations made last year, updating recommendations for what more needs to be done.

This year's report includes the second edition of the Buildings Chapter, developed in collaboration with the GlobalABC. The chapter highlights progress in the built environment and calls on governments to strengthen collaboration, in five priority areas: standards & certification, demand creation,  finance & investment, research & deployment, capacity & skills– to accelerate decarbonisation and enhance resilience in buildings. 

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The 2024 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) recast introduces more stringent provisions for EPCs and establishes a framework for renovation passports as an additional voluntary tool to provide a clear roadmap for staged deep renovations. In accordance with Article 12 of the EPBD, Member States are required to put in place a renovation passport scheme by 29 May 2026 based on the common framework set out in Annex VIII of the EPBD.

The iBRoad2EPC project has developed a flexible, adaptable and modular model renovation passport that provides a set of solutions that can be immediately applied to the transposition and/or implementation of a number of EU policy instruments.

The present report includes a detailed analysis of how iBRoad2EPC can support and facilitate the implementation of each article of the EPBD and its requirements for the renovation passports as set in Annex VIII, as well as the Renovation Wave strategy, the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). The analysis then informs concrete actions to maximise the uptake of iBRoad2EPC to achieve the EU’s decarbonisation goals.

The iBRoad2EPC EU roadmap thus provides guidance to policymakers on how to optimally prepare the ground for national roll out and maximise the use of iBRoad2EPC to accelerate deep renovation in the EU. It thereby provides recommendations for improving the implementation of related Directives or amending the regulatory framework to promote deep renovation, and how to best use iBRoad2EPC for this purpose.

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Decarbonizing existing buildings is challenging but necessary to achieve climate goals. To accelerate progress, we need to make energy retrofits more accessible, affordable, and commonplace. A viable market for decarbonization and a streamlined retrofitting process can help make these efforts more equitable and cost-effective today.

The majority of US buildings that will exist in 2050 are already standing. Reducing climate pollution from leaky and inefficient existing buildings that run on fossil fuels is fundamental to any climate strategy. Yet the typical retrofitting process depends heavily on owners and is fraught with uncertainty. Conflicting guidance, high costs, fragmented financing, and administrative burdens are all significant hurdles that owners and service providers face impeding the widespread adoption of retrofitting solutions. There is an urgency to develop a robust market for building decarbonization to meet climate targets. Efforts to induce and support this shift should be focused on scalable solutions, favorable policies, and programmatic systems.

In recent years, RMI has focused on accelerating deep energy retrofits for affordable housing across Massachusetts to catalyze the growth of a viable regional market for building decarbonization by facilitating key “lighthouse projects.” These projects serve as exemplary models for eliminating on-site fossil fuels, maximizing efficiencies, reducing emissions, and enhancing comfort and health for low- and middle-income residents. This report outlines our progress in Massachusetts to date, synthesizing observations of the current market, including enabling factors for decarbonization such as extensive stakeholder engagement and knowledge-sharing platforms. We identify common challenges including difficulties with decarbonization assessments, financial barriers, and administrative burdens.

As a result of these direct project engagements, the report also distills lessons learned into suggested paradigm shifts to scale building decarbonization, such as adopting holistic building design approaches and integrating standardized frameworks. RMI proposes foundational and strategic actions to reinforce a landscape conducive to building retrofits that benefit low-income households and preserve a livable climate for future generations. By developing, refining, and sharing best practices, processes, and strategies across the industry, stakeholders can stimulate a thriving market for building decarbonization and drive progress toward a low-carbon future.

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The new Finnish Construction Act includes obligations concerning sustainable construction that stress carbon reduction and longevity of buildings. The latter contains a new essential technical requirement concerning the lifecycle performance of a building. The lifecycle performance comprises durability, adaptability and reusability. Thus they also have impacts on the use value and economic value of buildings.

The basic condition for the management of lifecycle performance is that in construction projects precise and verifiable requirements can be set for lifecycle performance. This in turn requires that the lifecycle performance and indicators for them have been defined. The Ministry of the Environment started an expert process in 2022 that aims to further specify the concepts related to lifecycle performance and present a summary and development proposals for the evaluation, planning and guidelines concerning lifecycle performance.

This report presents some of the content produced in the expert process and proposes that, after having been further specified, lifecycle performance should be more systematically incorporated into the procurements and guidance of construction. The report lays the foundation for a systematic approach to lifecycle planning and gives recommendations for further development opportunities related to the topic.

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Since 2015, the Healthy Homes Barometer has been tracking the state of European Union (EU) homes and shining a light on workplaces and educational institutions. The 2024 edition has been renamed as the Healthy Buildings Barometer (HBB) to reflect the fact it now extends to all major building types, giving us significant insights into all our buildings and their users’ health. The 2024 edition also includes a comprehensive framework for healthy buildings based on scientific research and illustrated through 12 case studies from across the EU. Policymakers at national and EU levels, as well as building sector stakeholders, can use this Healthy Buildings Barometer and its framework as a guide to achieving healthy and sustainable buildings across Europe.

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This report discusses ways of enhancing government capacities to prevent, react and rebuild, thereby minimising the impact of natural disasters on infrastructure assets and operations. It identifies data, collaboration and technologies as drivers of resilience, and highlights financial resources, technical skills and regulatory frameworks as key enablers. The report presents seven actionable principles to ensure infrastructure resilience, drawing from global good practices and in-depth analysis of infrastructure projects in Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mozambique and the United States.